


Boys who

by somanygayships



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drabble, M/M, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, mention of domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:14:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29365323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somanygayships/pseuds/somanygayships
Summary: Quick drabble because I'm sad so angst
Relationships: Hope Lupin/Lyall Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Boys who

**Author's Note:**

> :(

It was only a matter of time. Lyall knew that, he really did. But he didn’t think it would happen like this. Did retribution have to be so cruel? Surely death would have been easier. More humane. 

But they weren’t humane. They weren’t remotely human. The monster in front of him surely no longer was. The only reason it was still alive was because his wife - it’s mother - was standing in front of the wand he had pointed at the screaming, bloodied creature he had tucked in only hours ago. The screaming, bloodied creature that had called him dad and told him to check under the bed for monsters with bloodshot eyes and a paranoid whimper. 

The irony wasn’t lost on Lyall, name your child Remus and what did he honestly expect to happen? Professor Gullveig had always told him there was no such thing as coincidence, and he’d had a knack for divination. But Hope, the true epitome of her name, happened to have a soft spot for Ancient Rome and he had chosen to overlook the universe’s perfectly obvious sign in order to indulge his panting wife as she lay with the muggle healer telling her that ‘it’s a boy’ in such an endearingly welsh accent that he was lost in love with both her and their newborn son.

The five years that they’d had with Remus were the happiest that Lyall had ever had. Watching him grow into his shaggy head of curls and almost alarming expanse of leg in the sereness of their perfectly recluse Llangollen, where he returned at the end of each day from the ministry to such a happy home that it must have truly been heaven on earth, but never accuse Lyall Lupin of that muggle god-bothering business. Merlin knew there was no God. Not knowing the creatures he was forced to come into contact with every day, a merciful god would never have put them on the same earth as mankind. If there was a God, Lyall would still be a father.

But he wasn’t. 

Fenrir Greyback had made sure of that the moment he had walked free of the ministry cells, smirking at Lyall before he had left through the glowing green flames as if he was a particularly tasty piece of meat (which Lyall supposes, to a heinous and sadistic beast, he was). 

This fateful night in June 1965 his son had been murdered. Only his wife could not seem to realise that the Remus she knew was gone the moment the monster sunk its teeth into the hollow between the boy’s neck and shoulder. 

The moon casting a ghostly white over the bloodstained scene through the still wide-open window, illuminated the cruel imitation of what had once been his family and Lyall stifled a sob of such intense grief and rage it almost knocked him to the floor. If he didn’t do it soon, the pain would overpower him and the world would be infected by more Greybacks. So Lyall pushed past his begging wife - Hope letting out such a horrified shriek of anguish he almost hesitated.

But when he looked on the bed and saw the glowing, amber eyes of that thing the only thing he felt raising his wand and opening his mouth to recite that fearful incantation was relief. The overwhelming feeling of a sense of martyrdom, of ridding the planet of an infectious disease. And when the green blast of light that shot from his wand like a beacon of good knocked him of his feet, he lost consciousness without a thought of the kill he just made - and allowed grief to overcome him.

-

It was only when he regained awareness that he heard it. 

The pitiful screeching of a child in incomprehensible pain. A pain that surpassed all aspects of the physical, one that evolved and mutated and pushed onto your chest and made it impossible to take a breath without the regurgitating presence of agony that takes over when you lose the only thing you know. The pure love of a mother to her son. Lost. Taken by the man who’d promised to protect you both forever. 

And Lyall looked at the creature crying into his dead wife’s chest, begging for her to wake up, covering her face - still frozen in desperation - in dried streaks of its dirty blood, and all he felt was a blinding hatred. A throbbing numbness of the need to kill it.

But he couldn’t. 

Because a mother’s love and sacrifice for her son is the ultimate protection, and anybody who understood ancient magic knew how finite this was. And Lyall understood ancient magic. They had named their son ‘Remus’ afterall.

But Hope was gone, and hope was lost. And Lyall was forced to bear the reminder of the real cause of his wife’s death - the creature wearing the mask of his son’s face - for the rest of his life.

***

Remus Lupin found it difficult to comprehend James’ relationship with his parents. A mother who cried as she hugged her son goodbye on the platform of the Hogwarts Express, and a father gruffly expressing his love for a son he didn’t regret the birth of. A son that, in fact, they loved more than life itself.

Remus didn’t have parents, not really. His father detested his existence and his mother was dead. He didn’t really understand the reason for either of these things but he did know for certain that they were his fault. It’s what Lyall told him as he punctuated each word with a kick to Remus’ stomach or bottle of empty firewhisky smashed into his skull. 

So no, he did not at all understand how James Potter had cried the first time getting on the train away from home when Remus had felt as if he could breathe for the first time in his life.

What he could appreciate, however, was Sirius Black’s attitude in escaping from the ‘most ancient and noble house of Black’ - at least through the school term. The scars etched in Sirius’ body from the constant torment and abuse from his parents were grounding for a boy like Remus Lupin.

Because Remus Lupin and Sirius Black were two sides of the same coin. Both despised for what they’d become and hated for existing, whilst James Potter and Peter Pettigrew operated in completely different currencies and did not understand a family where unconditional love wasn’t questioned. 

It was inevitable really, that they would find solace in each other. 

Boys that flinched at human touch and couldn’t trust kindness without seeing hidden malice - but grasped for each other when the inside of their heads turned on them. Boys that let the anger inside them build up until it exploded - but encased one another in the safety of their arms in the dead of night. Boys who believed they weren’t good enough for each other - but loved ceaselessly, even if neither of them could say it aloud.

Boys who became men but could never escape the mould they were shaped into. 

Boys who left as they had grown.

Alone.


End file.
